


Nightmares Lived

by SansSerif



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Dreams, F/M, Hurt, Memories, Nightmares, Past, Season/Series 02, Semi-sentient TARDIS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-03-13
Packaged: 2017-12-05 05:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SansSerif/pseuds/SansSerif
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the Doctor's memories haunt him and Rose gets in the habit of comforting him. What if he can't forget long enough to remember the present?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

With a jolt, Rose sat up and grabbed the piece of space junk she kept by her bed for self protection. Traveling with the Doctor one could never be too sure. 

That was her first reaction. Now that she was in a better position for defense, she let her brain wake a bit and catch up. A scream. She had heard a scream. Who was screaming in the TARDIS? There was only the two of them and it wasn’t her so that left one other person…

Swinging her legs off the bed, Rose stood up and walked softly towards the corridor. There! Another scream. A hundred scenarios raced through her mind. Were they under attack? Was someone kidnapping the Doctor as she stood useless and unmoving? Or worse, torturing him? Not giving the thought time to fully develop in her mind, Rose raced off down the corridor. Her bare feet slapped painfully against the metal floor and her muscles, still waking, protested about the weight of the metal rod she carried but Rose didn’t give in. Left, left, right, and— With a crash, she attempted to leap down the stairs but tumbled off the bottom, her foot catching on the last step.

Rose swore under her breath, knowing that there was no way she could sneak up on the intruders now. She tried to get to her feet as she heard a gentle snort in the next room but her leg gave way, screaming in pain at the fresh cut and the bruise that was sure to be developing with it. It was all she could do to keep from echoing that scream. 

There were footsteps coming towards the doorway. Resolutely gripping the metal rod, she got to her knees. They wouldn’t take her lying down, anyway.

Obscured in the shadows of the TARDIS’s night lighting — lighting that took the place of night, really — a tall thin form appeared.

“I warn you—“ Rose began and then stopped as she recognized the form. “Oh. Oh! Doctor, you’re okay!” She made another effort to stand, this time succeeding by leaning on the metal rod.

From what she could see in the shadows, Rose could tell that the Doctor had his bemused face on. He ran his fingers through his hair as if the resulting static might speed up his mind a bit. “Rose? That you?”

“Yeah. I heard screaming and…” One-handedly, Rose gestured at the impromptu weapon she was leaning on.

The Doctor stayed silent for a moment. Rose could imagine his eyes, the gears turning behind them. Finally a connection was made and he fumbled in his bathrobe, pulling out his sonic screwdriver. A quick press of it raised the light level closer to dawn, revealing them to each other. Of course, he was the _Doctor_ so the first thing he noticed was—

“You’re hurt,” he exclaimed, real worry in his voice. She tried to protest that it was only a scratch but he would have none of it. Before Rose knew what was happening, her arm was around the Doctor’s shoulders and he supported her into the room through the doorway. He sat her down on the edge of the bed before kneeling in front of a cupboard, rummaging through it.

Even his bedroom cupboards are chaos, Rose thought to herself wryly as she massaged her calf which was threatening to cramp from the fall. And then she realized where she was. The Doctor’s bedroom. He had vaguely pointed it out the first time he had given her a tour of the TARDIS but never had she seen inside it. Her eyes roamed over the twin wardrobes — he only wore two suits, maybe each wardrobe held ten of each? — and onto the bookshelves that lined two of the walls. The bed that she sat on was carefully placed away from the shelves so that if the TARDIS hit space turbulence none of the books would brain him in his sleep. Rose twisted around to get a better look at his bed, wondering if Gallifreyans slept the same way that humans did.

Judging by the way the covers were tossed to the side and by the imprint on his pillow, they did. Giving a gentle experimental bounce, Rose noted that the mattress was certainly comfortable. In fact, she would have lain back on it to really properly try it out except—

Except here she was in a large tshirt and really not much else and he was turning back to her wearing a bathrobe that was untied and a pair of pyjama trousers and nothing else. And he was kneeling down to put plaster on the cut on her leg. Not a shy girl by nature, Rose found herself blushing and tugging on the hem of her shirt in an attempt to cover her legs a bit more. If she ever thought about them in his bedroom half dressed it definitely was not like _this_.

This didn’t seem to strike the Doctor, though. He was wrapped up tending to her cut, his head bent as he focused. His hair, still mussed from sleep, was right there and Rose couldn’t help herself. She reached over, running her fingers through that glorious shock of hair that her other Doctor hadn’t had. 

Startled, the Doctor looked up and then smiled. He waited for her to finish straightening his hair before he stood up, setting the plasters on a convenient table cluttered with much less ordinary things. Without waiting for an invitation, he sat down next to her. “What did you do that for, anyway?” he asked.

“I heard a scream,” Rose said, wanting to start at the beginning and then she stopped because she remembered the only place the scream could have come from.

Judging by the way that the Doctor’s smile slid off his face, he knew too. Suddenly the story wasn’t important any more at all. Rose reached over, setting her hand on the Doctor’s. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m always okay,” he replied, the usual bravado bringing a smile back to his face.

Rose shook her head. “You screamed for a reason and since we’re not rushing about like mad after some monster I’m gonna guess that it wasn’t an invasion. And it takes a lot to scare you, anyway.” She glanced up, studying his face until she found the answer written behind his eyes where it was getting harder for him to hide things from her. “You… you were dreaming, weren’t you.”

“Time Lords see a lot, Rose,” he said, his voice grave. “And with everything they see… and everything I— they’ve lost… Bad dreams come with it.” 

“What…?” Rose didn’t finish the question, unwilling to force the Doctor to talk if he didn’t want to. Not that anyone could, of course, but he might feel obligated…

“I watched my planet burn,” he answered bluntly, staring at his hands. The TARDIS must have been listening to his feelings because the ground swayed a bit. Rose didn’t noticed, used to the TARDIS being nearly sentient. “I burned my people and that brilliant orange sky.”

“I’m sorry,” Rose whispered, overcome by the emotion in his voice. “I’m sorry…”

“Yeah,” the Doctor answered. “Yeah, I am too.”

Impulsively, Rose reached over and wrapped her arms around him. She shifted to lay her head on his chest, letting the double heart echo around her, comforting herself that even if all the Time Lords were lost the one that mattered was still there. A moment passed as the Doctor looked down at her. She wondered if he would push her away, too proud to accept someone’s comfort after a nightmare, but then his hand was smoothing down her hair and it was okay. 

*****

It was only after the TARDIS lights dimmed down again that Rose realized she was falling asleep in the Doctor’s lap. She roused herself and made herself stand, wincing slightly as her leg complained. A moment’s inspection reassured her that it was fine. She had certainly had worse.

“Let’s get you back to bed,” the Doctor said, offering her his hand. “One of us should get some sleep tonight, anyway.”

“What about you?” Rose asked, looking up to his eyes. He gave her that look, the look that always said everything without saying a word. He wouldn’t sleep again tonight. The dreams were too much. 

Shaking her head, Rose pulled her hand from his. “We’ve got lots to do tomorrow, you need sleep,” she informed him, doing a good imitation of her mum. “I’ll keep your dreams away.” Sitting down on his bed, she leaned back on her hands, cocking a smile of her own at him. “Come on, the company will be good for you.”

The Doctor just stood there, staring at her as if she had gone entirely mad. Vaguely, Rose had to agree with him. They didn’t cross this line, not ever. But in the middle of the night it was so much easier to cross those uncrossable lines.

Finally he spoke. “Fine,” he said, and turned away. “But you’re wearing trousers.”

Rose had to laugh at that and caught the pair of his pyjama trousers that he tossed at her. “Been so long since you’ve had a girl in your bed that you insist on trousers?” she asked, teasing him as she pulled them on.

The Doctor shook his head without saying anything, too serious for how he usually was. Rose could see the nightmares still written in the lines in his face. “Come to bed, Doctor,” she told him softly as she held her hands out to him. “Come to bed.”

There was another heartbeat moment where she wondered if he would turn her away but then he stepped closer and sat on the bed next to her. Rose climbed under the covers, shoving them back so that he could lie down next to her. He did so, cautiously keeping his distance but she didn’t let him do that for long. Snuggling close, she wrapped her arm over him and pressed her ear against his chest, listening to the slow four beats of his Time Lord hearts. And slowly, carefully, she felt his arm tuck her close as she drifted off to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

The nightmares and comforting continued although neither of them spoke of it during the day. And once it had gone on for a couple weeks, Rose showed up at the Doctor’s bedroom one night all dressed for bed at the start of the night instead of in the middle of it. There was an awkward pause but the Doctor didn’t stop Rose from climbing into bed with him. They didn’t speak of it then, either. Rose didn’t want the Doctor to forbid her from sleeping with him and she couldn’t tell what he thought about the arrangement other than the fact that he was glad to have the company when he woke her with muffled cries into his pillow. 

Each night she learned a bit more about his past. He would talk in the darkness and she would try to imagine so that she might know just a small fragment more of her Doctor. He told her about the Time Lords, told her about the friends that he killed when he ended the Time War. He told her about fighting that Time War, fighting with weapons that she couldn’t comprehend. It wasn’t all violence, either. That wasn’t the part that he missed, after all. He spoke of his friends, of growing up a rebel, never quite fitting in even in the Time Lord society. There were school trips out of the Citadel, half-crazy friends that he loved all the same, brothers, sister, mothers, daughters, everything that she had but put in a very different world.

The hardest nights were the ones that she woke to find him watching her across the pillows as if he could not see her. He would touch her then, lightly resting his fingers on her cheek or tucking his arm over her to press her close. She knew that he wasn’t seeing her but she didn’t always let herself remember that. Rose let herself believe that the Doctor was watching her, not someone in his memory. This was the man that she had saved by looking into the TARDIS, the man that she would go to all lengths to help. She didn’t remember all that happened that day but the memories would come back sometimes. That was what would haunt _her_ dreams if they were flying through time while she slept. She never remembered all of it when she woke but the pieces were there, letting her piece things back together.

One of those nights when the Doctor was watching her his fingers slipped down off her cheek. Rose hesitated as his long fingers brushed her hair back from her neck but the empty look in his eyes was not enough to turn her thoughts away from what comfort she could give him. Closing her eyes, Rose leaned forward to gently press her lips to the Doctor’s.

Her kiss was met with something hungrier from him, as if he had been deprived of kisses for several centuries. His fingers, once so gentle, pressed firmer as they traveled off her neck and onto her chest. Rose answered by fumbling with the buttons on his shirt until she could push it off his shoulders, her fingers tracing answering designs in his skin as their lips met again and again with increasing intensity.

Off his shirt came and then hers. Neither of them were shy, too caught up in the moment to remember who they were or the unspoken rules between them. The Doctor had her on her back by then, his hands exploring more and more and hers matching his as she leaned up to hold the kiss, never opening her eyes. She could feel his thin frame beneath her hands and his dexterous fingers on her body and that was all that mattered until she pushed the kiss further.

“N’mra.” The Doctor breathed the name as he pulled back a bit and Rose’s eyes flew open as she crashed back to reality. Cold waves washed over her, drawing up goosebumps as tears pricked at her eyes. Suddenly his hands felt as alien as he was, changed by that short name.

The Doctor’s eyes opened when he felt her stiffen and his cheeks were glistening with his own tears. “Rose,” he corrected himself but his voice was distant and cold and she knew that she was not the one he was thinking of. Rose twisted out from underneath him, grabbing for her shirt but coming up with only a pillow.

“Rose,” the Doctor said again as he sat up, fully present and tears rolling down his cheeks. “Rose Tyler…”

“Don’t you say my name, Time Lord,” she whispered roughly as she watched him, hugging the pillow to her chest. Part of her longed to reach out to brush away his tears but the hurt part of her was greater. “You’ve had too many people to remember who you’re snogging so don’t you say my name.”

The Doctor started to open his mouth to say her name by reflex but he remembered himself. Closing it, he wordlessly reached out and picked up her shirt from the foot of the bed. He handed it to Rose before turning and slipping off the bed. She busied herself with pulling it over her head and by the time it was on, he was gone.

A brief internal battle ensued. Rose knew that she had struck an underhanded blow, using his past against him like that, but he had forgotten who she was, didn’t he deserve that? Eventually she told herself to at least go out and make sure he’s not throwing himself into space.

Hugging her arms against her chest, Rose padded out of the bedroom and headed for the console room where she knew the Doctor would be. She didn’t step into the light, instead she stayed clinging to the shadows, hovering in the corridor as she watched the room below. 

The Doctor stood with his back to her, both hands gripping the console screen. His shoulders were shaking and Rose knew he must be crying harder than he cried when he woke from his nightmares. Her hurt started to melt away but then she caught sight of the picture of the woman on the console screen and she knew she could not go comfort him. She turned away, first walking and then running down the corridor, away from the man she loved but knew she could never have fully, not when so many others had had him before her. She was sobbing by the time she reached her own bedroom and flung open the door. Not bothering to close it, she dropped down on her cold bed, muffling her sobs in her pillow. Phantom fingers reached over her body as the memories of what she almost had tortured her and drove her cries louder as she pushed them away, unwilling to face her thoughts.

 

“Rose?” The Doctor’s voice was a soft whisper as he heard her turn away. He looked at the empty doorway but she was already gone, her footsteps thumping away from him. He took a step forward as if to pursue her but stopped, remembering the anger in her voice when he had spoken the name he had been thinking of. He turned back to the console screen, expecting to see N’mra’s face again but the TARDIS had shifted it. Companion after companion flashed across the screen as if mocking him for all those he had loved. “Stop it,” he told the TARDIS angrily, giving the screen a shake. “Stop it. I can’t help that I live longer than they do, I can’t help it. Do you want me to be alone?”

The screen flickered and went dark. The Doctor gave it a black look before throwing himself into the worn seats next to the railing. Head in his hands, he saw the faces flashing through his mind as if the TARDIS had never stopped showing them. Forcing them away, he walked over to the door, pulling it open. 

The night was black, as space always was, but stars shown off in the distance. This is what matters, the Doctor told himself. Companions come and companions go but this is always here. 

Pushing the thought of Rose’s too warm body underneath him and N’mra’s cooler one above him out of his mind, the Doctor stared out into space. Behind him, the TARDIS made a comforting noise, one of her nighttime hums that told him she was working fine. “That’s it, old girl,” he told her softly. “You and me, time and space. That’s all that matters.”


End file.
